


i see the angels / i'll lead them to your door

by cassandralied



Series: i've nothing left to hide from you; i've got no god to sell [4]
Category: American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: F/F, F/M, Magic white spirit light, Mallory is not a witch, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 12:57:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21494674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandralied/pseuds/cassandralied
Summary: The showdown between Michael Langdon and Zoe Benson is surprisingly short.
Relationships: Michael Langdon/Mallory, Zoe Benson/Madison Montgomery
Series: i've nothing left to hide from you; i've got no god to sell [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1512272
Comments: 9
Kudos: 23





	i see the angels / i'll lead them to your door

It happens too fast.

Mallory, the girl who used to hold time in the palm of her hands and play with it like a cat’s cradle, catches up too late.

_Blink_. Zoe Benson is there, her eyes dark, her jaw set, wearing a tattered black dress and looking like a wicked witch straight out of a fairytale.

_Blink._ Michael says something in his slow, syrupy way, and something sparks in Zoe’s dead, dead eyes. She lunges forward.

_Blink._ Zoe’s on the floor, screaming, curled up into the fetal position as she twitches and writhes.

Then Mallory’s on her knees beside her, getting dust on her (Venable’s) beautiful red dress. She tries to hold Zoe’s head, but Zoe screams and bangs her own skull against the floor over and over again.  
“What did you do to her?” Mallory demands. Michael shrugs. For once, he looks more annoyed than satisfied, and his silence is petulant. As if the twitching, screaming girl on the floor is somehow Mallory’s _fault_.

The gates slam open _again_, and Mallory knows that it’s Madison even before the short blonde witch comes running into the room in those thigh high black boots. She drops to her knees, _hard_, beside Zoe and glares brokenly up at Michael. “Fix her. _Now_.”  
“Mind how you speak to me,” Michael says, and his voice is icy. “You assured me you’d take care of her murderous impulses.”  
“I fucked up, okay,” Madison cries, choked, and now it’s Mallory who feels like an interloper. “Please, I’ll do anything, just fix her.” She’s succeeded in wrestling Zoe’s head onto her lap, but Zoe’s eyes are stark white and she won’t stop screaming.

“I should kill you both,” Michael snarls and raises his hand and Mallory is on her feet again, grabbing his arm, yanking him close, brown eyes heated and alive staring into his glasslike blues. “Michael,” she says lowly. She doesn’t beg or curse like Madison. She just says his name and somehow, that does it.

“You can leave,” Michael says magnanimously. He addresses the air above Madison’s head. “Have fun in eternity with what’s left of her.”

Madison stands in a single fluid motion and slaps Michael across the face. She’s rage and fear and immortality and for a moment she almost seems to glow.

Michael touches his split lip. “You little —”

He raises his hand and Madison’s neck snaps. Zoe hasn’t even registered her girlfriend’s death as she babbles and sobs on the floor, clawing at her hair and her blind eyes.  
As if a weight’s been lifted from her throat, Mallory finally speaks. “Bring them back.”

Michael lifts his gaze from the corpses. “No.”

“Then I will.”

She crouches in a puddle of blood-colored skirts and holds her hands over Zoe first.

Michael’s voice is thick with incredulity. “I caged your witch powers, Mallory. Come to bed. We’ll clean this up in the morning.”

Mallory ignores him. She focuses on the first healing spell Zoe had ever taught her. It had just been the two of them in the back garden with a dead mouse. _“That time reversal you can do is very impressive,”_ Zoe had said with a little conspirator’s smile. _“But let’s learn at least one healing spell.”_

But it isn’t the healing spell that pours through Mallory’s hands now, illuminating her bones like glow-sticks and stretching the skin of her hands taut. It’s something else, something older than God and the Devil. Something older than time.

Perhaps sensing the not-magic that pours forth from Mallory’s hands despite her blindness, Zoe falls silent. She actually moans as Mallory’s magicnotmagic flows towards her, clearing the white fog from her eyes and the madness from her brain.

Mallory hears Michael’s breath stop, but she pays no attention. She moves to Madison next, using carefully glowing hands to realign the dead girl’s spine and twist her neck back together. Madison comes back gasping Zoe’s name.

The two witches clutch each other as Mallory stands, a girl who’s never been a mere witch, who’s never been a mere human, and she fixes those effervescent brown eyes on Michael.

**_“You caged our ‘witch’ powers?”_** Mallory asks incredulously. White and blue flames flicker at the corners of her lips as she smiles. Her irises shine out pinpricks of light. **_“You’re not dealing with a witch, Langdon.”_**

For the first time since their Cooperative interview so long ago, Michael seems afraid.

Madison had thought it was just an identity spell. Just like the one on Coco. Just something to hide the personality of vibrant Mallory with the dull depressing Mallory that would be needed to slip under Michael’s nose. So that’s what she had told the Antichrist when they talked that week, her information the only thing keeping Zoe alive.

But Cordelia hadn’t even told Myrtle Snow her theory, much less Madison. Cordelia hadn’t, because it seemed too incredible to even voice aloud that their latest witch was more than just a witch —sure, she’d been born into the body of a witch, but Mallory’s spirit was something eldritch and terrible. So when she’d cast the spell, Cordelia had made Mallory’s body forget that it was ever anything but human.

And now here she is, literally burning the velvet dress off of her body, standing in the illuminated ballroom like Venus herself, with Zoe and Madison standing behind her like reborn disciples.

“Mallory,” Michael breathes, and the figure before him smiles. **_“Close enough.”_**


End file.
